• Operational excellence: UPS has maintained leadership in small-package deliver services despite stiff competition from FedEx and the U.S. Postal System by investing heavily in advanced information technology.
• New products, services, and business models: In June 2009 UPS launched a new Web-based Post Sales Order Management System (OMS) that manages global service orders and inventory for critical parts fulfillment. The system enables high-tech electronics, aerospace, medical equipment, and other companies anywhere in the world that ship critical parts to quickly assess their critical parts inventory, determine the most optimal routing strategy to meet customer needs, place orders online, and track parts from the warehouse to the end user.
• Customer and supplier intimacy: Customers can download and print their own labels using special software provided by UPS or by accessing the UPS Web site. UPS spends more than $1 billion each year to maintain a high level of customer service while keeping costs low and streamlining its overall …show more content…
Information systems development and usage involves organization, management, and technology dimensions. It is important to understand who will use the information systems and how the information systems will be used to facilitate decision making and control within the organization. Computer specialists understand the technology and definitely play an important role within the development and maintenance of information systems. Computer specialists have an in-depth technology background, but may not be well versed in the business or its operations. This is why computer specialists should function as part of a team, and this team should have the hybrid strength of many different skills and personalities. The team should definitely understand the business, the business requirements, and the goals for the information …show more content…
Patient privacy concerns, data quality issues, and resistance from health care workers are other difficulties that must be addressed.
Technology: It’s unclear whether or not the many different types of systems being developed and implemented will be compatible with one another, jeopardizing the goal of a national system where all health care providers can share information.
3. What is the business, political, and social impact of not digitizing medical records (for individual physicians, hospitals, insurers, patients, and the U.S. Government)?
Individual physicians: The federal government plans to assess penalties on practices that fail to comply with the new electronic recordkeeping standards. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements will slowly be reduced by 1 percent per year until 2018, with further, more stringent penalties coming beyond that.
Hospitals: Health care spending figures are inflated by inefficiency, errors, and fraud.
Insurers: Processing insurance claims from patients, hospitals, and physicians will continue to be a slow, cumbersome process fraught with errors and fraud. Insurers will continue to spend too much money on claims processing—money that could be used to pay actual medical